Knee-jerk reaction to a non-problem of speed

Miranda Devine

–,
Tuesday,
October,
09,
2012,(7:39pm)

YOU know if 80 per cent of people are disobeying a law, it’s probably the law that needs fixing rather than the people. But in these illiberal times, we ramp up the punishment.

So when a Macquarie University study this month found that 70 to 80 per cent of drivers break the 40km/h speed limit when entering school zones, the usual call went up for more speed cameras and tougher fines.

This is the solution to every road safety issue from the robotic RTA now uselessly rebadged as Roads and Maritime Services.

But tomorrow a former RTA engineer will spill the beans on the failed logic and wasted money behind the state’s War on Speed which has had negligible impact on safety, and may in fact provoke a psychological backlash among motorists.

Lex Stewart, RTA road safety manager between 1990 and 1997, will tell the Australian Institute of Traffic and Planning conference at Luna Park that better road safety comes from “flowing with” rather than going against “innate human psychology”.

He says the number of road deaths has barely budged over the past decade as ever more drastic penalties have been enforced on motorists.

School speed zones are an example of a kneejerk reaction to a non problem that has diverted resources from more pressing safety issues. “All this huge money spent (on school zones) has had very small benefit because there never were any significant numbers of children killed or injured near schools in the first place,” he said.

He counters the argument that any price is worth saving a life by saying that if money is diverted from programs that could save 50 lives, “all that we have achieved is to kill 49 people”.

Five police highway patrol officers he interviewed for his paper complained that school zones were being “forced” on them and were difficult to enforce, diverting police attention away from more pressing issues such as bike helmets.

Stewart advocates scrapping all 40km/h school speed zones and instead employing more school crossing supervisors trained as special constables with the power to enforce 50 or

60km/h limits. “They can also talk to children, educating them in road safety, something that cameras cannot do.”

He said Australian authorities were “unusually obsessed” with speeding, at the risk of underemphasising the dangers of drunk driving or driving without a seatbelt.

Speed cameras were “purely punitive, not educational” he said. “We need to ask those obsessed with speed cameras why Germany, with no speed limit at all on its autobahns, has a fatality rate of 0.7, which is substantially better than NSW’s 0.9 and Australia’s 0.8.”

The NSW Auditor-General’s report into speed cameras last year was a “damning indictment of RTA incompetence and arrogance”. The report found 70 per cent of submissions viewed cameras as revenue raisers, and only 28 per cent of cameras produced statistically significant improvements in road safety.”

“It is far more effective to use roving highway patrol officers.”

When he was in charge of road safety in 90 per cent of the state west of Lithgow, Stewart wanted every motorist to see a blue flashing light on their travels.

He told police in his patch that if a driver is travelling at 112km/h in a 110 zone you pull him over, and “have a chat”, about the inadvisability of breaking the speed limit, the hazards of fatigue and the whereabouts of the closest rest stop is. Then you send him on his way without a ticket.

This way the community is involved in taking responsibility for driving safely.

While politicians and bureaucrats “piously” rail against speeding, claiming it is the No.1 road safety problem, “there is little hard data to back them up”, he said.

By contrast, the data on drink driving is accurate, since blood samples are taken from people involved in a crash, and tell us that alcohol is involved in 21 per cent of road deaths and 19 per cent of crashes.

Similarly, failure to wear a seatbelt (or a helmet) resulted in 12 per cent of deaths.

But the official line that “up to 40 per cent” of crashes are caused by excessive speed is a guess, Stewart said, based on insufficient scientific evidence, flawed data and inadequate police accident reports.

Stewart is all for bringing down speeds where appropriate, such as in residential areas where reducing the speed limit from 60 to 50km/h means less damage if a car hits a bike or pedestrian.

But the blanket assault on speed is absurd: “Why not make all speed limits 10km/h?”

Stewart is not just a critic. He has a lot of worthwhile solutions, including the introduction of a fairer “merit” scheme of 100 points, and speeding fines scaled more logically.

He advocates removing 90 per cent of speed cameras and putting the money into more highway patrol officers, encouraged to have frequent interactions with drivers in an educational/warning role.

One officer plus car costs about $200,000. If he books four people per shift then the fines reap the state $200,000. They are “close to being self-funding”. he said. “Why the reluctance to employ more?”

He would also erect lots more speed limit “reassurance” signs so drivers know how fast they can go, increase driver education and require new cars to have black box recorders so the role of speed, fatigue and so on can be assessed.

Stewart’s ideas, backed by his experience at the front line, are well worth heeding.

But Roads Minister Duncan Gay, who will open the conference this morning, did not respond to Stewart’s offer to view his paper. Gay went into office a champion of motorists, opposed to punitive fines and cameras. But like every minister before him, he is now captured by his department and addicted to the revenue.

That’s funny Pete. That is why Miranda is a columnist and you are relegated to big noting yourself on her blog.

youngster replied to Pete
Wed 10 Oct 12 (12:26pm)

So holding up everyone else’s life so you can ‘feel’ safer should be an aim of Government? Apparently the Government is now responsible for how you feel.

This is about evidence, plain and simple. The effectiveness of arbitrary speeds limits is not backed up by evidence, so we should look elsewhere for solutions. What is so wrong with that proposition?

Dan Lewis replied to Pete
Wed 10 Oct 12 (01:36pm)

Everybody knows that lower speeds make people feel safer when they are walking and cycling and make streets better places in which to live.

Imagine how much safer streets would be with no cars!
And think how many fewer robberies there would be if businesses never opened their doors.
And think how fewer sick children there would be if we stopped having them.

Aren’t idealistic lefties cute…

nfw replied to Pete
Thu 11 Oct 12 (09:23am)

How arrogant. Just because that is what you think does not make it right. Get the bike riders off the foot paths and deny them any medical benefits if they don’t wear helmets, ie they pay the full and total costs from their own pockets. Same applies to those injured in vehicle accidents and they have not been wearing seat belts. As for faux sympathy and being part of “look at me” attend all the hand wringing rallies you like but leave those of us who think it is nothing more than a media beat-up alone. Alan Jones speaks for the silent majority in the real working Australia. Your suburb and occupation is.........? he has been attacked by left wing unions and Lie-bor party supporters and the advertisers who succumbed to a few names out of how big a population (not forgetting that bin Laden was on the list) should be ashamed.

Always stay at least 20km/ph under the posted limit,the layba scumbags will never get what amounts to even more cash from you the poor tax paying slob.You use less fuel,its easier on wear and tear mechanicaly,its easy to stop in a hurry and It also means you get to be at the head of a long,impatient conga line of traffic

Congrats, you also get to waste an extra 20% of your time sitting in a car accomplishing nothing of value. Depending on the traffic lights you miss (since they’re designed for traffic to flow at the speed limit), you could add an extra 1/2 or even double your trip time. Over the course of a week that could be an extra 4 hours you’re spending in traffic inside your car as a complete waste of time.

There is so much wrong with the RTA—or whatever they are calling it this week—that the only way to straighten it out would be to declare all management positions vacant and invite the incumbents to reapply for their positions. That should be extended down into the management structure to all supervisors with more than three people in their charge.

For example, there is one branch manager who proudly announced to her staff late in 2010 that she loved her job. She loved the way she could impose her views on the way people behave and she loved the way she could regulate people’s lives.

When it comes to speed camera locations, even the people who install the things questioned the cameras on the Princes Highway at Kogarah.

Sure, there are two high schools and a TAFE college on one side of the highway near the cameras and St George Hospital is on the other side. However, there are four traffic lights—every intersection is controlled—in a distance of a little over 500m. There is a fence to prevent pedestrians crossing the road away from the lights and crossings and there is a pedestrian over-bridge. The geniuses in the Road Safety Branch cited the existence of a primary school—four blocks and about 500m away—as justification for speed cameras in both directions at that location.

Then there are roundabouts. The last intelligent comment made by the RTA about roundabouts was an explanatory note in the 1982 Road Users’ Handbook which talked about sharing the road.

Just this weekend, on each of two separate 7km local journeys that each involved three roundabouts I saw three drivers incorrectly signal their intentions in those roundabouts. And don’t get me started on the right-of-way rules regarding roundabouts.

The RTA should hang its head in shame over the way they have mismanaged roundabouts over a period of 30 years.

The NSW Government is not only addicted to the revenue, it’s a stark raving junkie, desperate for it’s next cash injection.

Cost of living pressures have not been reduced by Premier Baz, on the contrary, insidious fees like Kindergarten day rates have risen (all money goes direct to consolidated revenue and not to school like it used to). Ripping money out of education & looking enviously at the health and 000 budgets, what’s next, a longevity tax?

Miranda, I don’t know why you bothered. A lot of common sense words and solutions that the government won’t read.
You see Miranda, the government don’t give a rats bottom about you, me or what anybody else says or does.
Unless come election time there is a big heap of votes in it.
What it’s all about between now and then is revenue.
Unless and god forbid a polys child gets skittled in a 40 zone they will continue to pretend to hear and do nothing.
How does your last paragraph start “Duncan Gay did not respond”.
Today Gay is not even pretending to listen.

It was a pleasure reading an articulate advocate who wishes to fight road tragedies by co operating with motorists. Such a pleasant change with the war being waged on motorists simply to raise revenue rather than save lives.

Articulate perhaps but a complete logical disconnect in relation Ms Devine’s stance on drug law reform.

You know if 80 per cent of people are disobeying a law, it’s probably the law that needs fixing rather than the people. But in these illiberal times, we ramp up the punishment.

Yet in her April diatribe, contradictorily arguing that decriminalisation of drugs will encourage drug crime, Devine ignores evidence that the opposite is true. Of course, it’s much easier to have a go at revenue raising governments than intelligently apply the same argument to promote positive social change.

Yes, more police highway patrols would improve road safety, but there is still a role for autonomous speed detection and speeding fines.
The problem is that speed cameras are too few, involve penalties that are too large, too often penalise drivers who do not intend to exceed speed limits, and too often fail to penalise the most serious repeat offenders.
A more ubiquitous speed detection system is needed, including vehicle telemetry, road sensors and some camera surveillance.
The penalty for a single infringement should be much smaller and in proportion to the risk but the rate of detection of non-compliant drivers must be greatly increased.
Sure, the mid 20th century approach using police patrols remains important, but smart roads are the future.

Why don’t we just declare NSW a fascist state now instead of bothering with this move.

Instead of punishing people for driving fast, how about we set appropriate speed limitis at the 85th percentile?

Good on you MIranda, this issue has been kept quiet for far too long. I do hope you do further columns on it, as it will take ages to reverse the perverse statistics, lies and propaganda that various governments have been spouting for years.

Leo G replied to Leo G
Fri 12 Oct 12 (09:19am)

You’re not making sense Markus.
You advocate setting speed limits to ensure 15% non-compliance with the speed limit and not enforcing the limit.
Some years ago I provided technical services to a combined Police-RTA investigation into the causal and contributing factors in injury accidents involving articulated vehicles and cyclists.
Speed was overwhelmingly a contributing factor but seldom appeared to be the cause of events associated with those accidents.
Speed is seldom the cause, but ensuring a consistent maximum speed appropriate for the condition of the site and the vehicles appears critical in avoiding injury accidents.
Your suggestion, if implemented, would be disastrous.

If I travelled down a freeway with a posted speed limit of 100 kph at 120 kph and there was not another vehicle, person or any other “potential obstuction” in my way am I driving dangerously? I would suspect not given I am a competant driver.

If I travelled down the same freeway at a speed of 100 kph and up ahead I could see flashing red lights, people milling around an accident site and I continued to do the same posted speed limit through this scenario I am driving safely, yes? Mmmm, probably not!

In other words speed limits should be and can only be advisory. Conditions on the roads change over time and this change can be very quick. It can only be the driver of the vehicle who can judge what is the appropriate speed to do at any given point of time. No-one else can do it for them.

So perhaps the authorities should concentrate on making sure drivers have the necessary skills rather than using them as revenue raisers for the state coffers. It may even save lives!!

I don’t think that Duncan Gay has ever watched Yes Minister. He has been completely Sir Humphreyed. However this is only another example of the Government failing to purge the ex RTA of it’s driver hating and brain dead Labor leftovers. It seems to have followed One Term Ted rather than be like Campbell Newman.

Call it speed tax Duncan Gay! You have sold out to the revenue drive at all cost. It is self evident. As mentioned in the Divine blog enforcement of mandated helmets would save more people from life changing injury and death. Yet the number of bicycle riders particularly school children on our roads without helmets is impossible to miss. How many schools have had their main entrances relocated to secondary roads ? How many larger schools with available space have had the set down and pick up location moved off the main road and onto the school grounds? Talk and promises are being abused Minister after Minister government after government.

Hence the concept of hazard = probability x consequence. For shark attacks this is small.

Oh I am surprised that they don’t put tsunami walls on beaches. That’d be great for tourism.

Smoke detectors they cry. Look at equal populations of similar buildings with and without smoke detectors. They reduce fatalities a whopping 30%. Sorry, how did that cause an effect work. Smoke causes detector to make alarm. Occupant wakes up and flees. Many people died at Kings Cross in London. Didn’t believe the alarm.

What about fire walls. Now they stop fires. Stats: reduce damage by 30%.

Oh and bushfires ! I guess fewer than 5 people a year have died from those.

And just how bad is the risk of road accidents. More accidents occur at home. It must be getting pretty low by now. But create a bureaucracy and it will create a need to exist.

All this fear of accidents. Only a mere 275,000 people die in Australia every year. It’s called old age.

And if people didn’t die of old age. Live for ever ? Nope. Longevity about 1000-2000 years. it is by no means that gorey death is rare. look forward to it.

The authorities make adverts on the effects of speed. Every k is a killer. They get some trumped up prof who plays with kinematics, desperate for grant, to find some glaring fact. Did you know that in the last 5 m of stopping you change from a damaging speed to no damage at all !

The people who make these rules are unlikely to have done science - real science - and maths. Something rarely done at school these days. And they go onto legislate risks.

And how were speed limits every wroked out ? A risk study ? Consideration of inherent vehicle limitations ? No, from where bureaucrats most often have their brains.

I drive now about half those kms, after years of about yours, and, travelling long distances I usually drive at or near the limit.

For all that time we have seen other drivers overtaking, some at very high speeds, some recklessly, and a few causing us to take evasive action.

So I don’t know what road you have been travelling on. We haven’t seen it. Unless your “bit over” is really a lot over.

When you get onto the city freeways quite often you see multiple vehicles speeding together, presumably with youger drivers.

So, speeding really is a problem.

Duncan Gay did a very silly thing when he decommissioned fixed speed cameras after the election. What he should have done was remove the signs warning motorists of the location of those cameras.

It is ludicrous in the extreme that those warning signs should be there in the first place. The only possible explanation for this is that without them many politicians and officials would be caught speeding. That makes the signs corrupt.

If the signs were removed the cameras would then be able to function properly. They would be a real deterrent from dangerous speeding.

It would also bring a greater number of fines, making it feasible to reduce the fines to a more reasonable level.

Leo G replied to Terence
Fri 12 Oct 12 (09:44am)

Another Terence,
While I agree with your observations about speeding, the signs alerting drivers to the presence of a speed camera are necessary for safety.
A problem with variable speed zone cameras is that many drivers become conditioned to driving according to the state of the speed limit at the time they normally pass an installation. They may fail to respond correctly to the variable speed sign when they pass at unusual times.
The camera warning is a stronger alert aimed at avoiding sudden braking when a driver sites the camera.
It would only be feasible to remove the warning signs if the cameras were concealed- and I think that would be unfair, considering the high risk of being excessively penalised for an unintended infringement.

Couldn’t agree more Miranda…

Having lived and driven around Europe, I found it more predictable and drivers more alert to other drivers behaviour.

For instance you do not pull out into the overtaking lane when a car is in that lane and already driving at speed. Where as here… the numbskulls think it quite OK to impede someone and pull out in front of them and then travel at the same speed as the car they were overtaking… bloking the freeway until they eventually pass the car next to them. They are not overtaking… they are PASSING the car with momentum.

They are afraid to go 5K’s faster and actually complete an overtaking manoeuvre for fear of a fine… or speed which they can’t handle anyway because they are taught to drive at 60ks or under and get the death wobbles at 80ks an hour.

Ahhh Australia ... aiming for the lowest common denominator, driving like a bunch of lttle grey headed ol ladies.

Glitter’, A pity you don’t have a bit more of the ol’ ladies grey stuff.
Overtaking is defined as the situation where you approach from directly behind a vehicle and then move to one side or to another lane to pass it.
Your ‘numbskull’ is travelling at least at a speed where (you say) they risk a penalty if they travel 5kph faster, on a road with a speed limit exceeding 80kph, and yet blocking (bloking?) someone like you who must be approaching them rapidly from the rear.
It looks to me that “someone like you” is the real numbskull.
Are you one of those freeway misogynists who think “Bloking the freeway” against the ol’ ladies is OK?

Finally some common sense, but highly unlikely to change the attitude of the government. You see, what we didnt realise, or want to believe, at the last State election we elected another bunch of politicians. And they are being bluffed by the bureaucrats just as the last lot were.

The traffic regulation functions of the RTA (or whatever) should be turned over to the police, thus removing the conflict of interest over fines. Their ridiculous advertising campaigns, which just divert motorists attention from the road and traffic, should cease immediately.

The most profitable stretch of road is the part of Cleveland Street running past the Sydney High Schools. All that is needed is a pedestrian crossing with lights to ensure that the brightest in the land can cross the road safely.

It is now about 10 years since Denmark raised the speed limit for cars on freeways from 110 to 130 Km/hr, without any noticeable change in accident statistics. I have driven thousands of Km on German autobahns, feeling safer than I do driving on the Hume Highway, harassed by speeding trucks and non-overtaking cars driving in the outside lane.

If we want kids to walk and ride to school then lower speeds are needed on the routes they take and better footpaths and cycleways. The current 40 K zones often just end close to the school, as if kids all vanish further away than a hundred meters. Why not make all roads 40 K school zones in the urban areas, unless they have good walking and cycle paths or are major freeways not going past schools? Most European cities have 30 K limits on residential streets or 20 mph in UK, US.

Helmets don’t save your life if hit by a car at above about 40 or 50. Even at 30 if you get run over you can die from crushing. Most cyclists killed are wearing helmets!

Roberto,
In many of those medieval design streets and lanes found in many European City residential areas I would suggest that 30 Km/h might be just a tad excessive.
However to have posted speeds of 80 and 100 Km/h on a multilane dual carriageway as we find on the Pacific Highway between Newcastle and Port Macqaurie is ludicrous. The reason? Oh, yes a fatality or two, most usually a driver from Sydney who on a Friday night tries to overnight it to Brisbane. Neither Speed nor road conditions are a factor when such a driver veers of the carriageway and dead centres a large eucalypt. As a member of the NSW Highway Patrol many years ago I can say that Speed does KILL but it is most usually ridiculously excessive, more that 60 Km/H over the posted limit. But most assuredly fatigue kills more often

MFL replied to Roberto
Sun 14 Oct 12 (01:30pm)

There are some 30k limits in European cities BUT they are in very narrow pedestrian dominated streets where it is extremely difficult to reach 30k. Its time to stop these misleading comments about other jurisdictions having low limits.

Miranda, you mention that Germany’s autobahns have no speed restrictions, but this ignores the fact that residential streets in Germany have a 30km/h limit. There is absolutely no justification for allowing fast moving traffic through areas with high foot traffic, and I’ll claim my steak knives.

The Germans also have 200 hours of lessons to get their licence. ALL of it with qualified instructers.
10 hours in the city
10 hours in the country
10 hours in the wet
10 hours on the freeway etc etc etc

It costs them a fortune - but they VALUE their licence and don’t flout the law.

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